In the Blink of an Eye 

Nearly everyone in the music business today has his own personal collection of bikur cholim experiences. Those smiles and sighs from the sick and frail accompany them long after they leave the sterile hospital corridors. Looking back over the years, veteran composer, producer, and choirmaster

YITZY BALD shares two early encounters which he’s never forgotten.

The first was when he was still a bochur in Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. He’d just returned from a summer in Camp Agudah and happened to be at a simchah the Shabbos before the new zeman started, when a lady came over to him with a request. Her ten-year-old nephew had sustained brain injuries after a disastrous car accident. The young boy had been hospitalized for some weeks already in Staten Island Hospital and was totally unresponsive to all efforts to communicate and engage him. Could Yitzy go to the hospital and bring this child some music?

The problem was that yeshivah was beginning the next day, and Yitzy needed to be there to claim chavrusas and get the zeman off to a good start. He apologized and explained that he couldn’t miss the first days back in the beis medrash but would get there as soon as he could.